ALL STAR WEEK IS HERE!
Imagine that during the third quarter of an NBA All-Star Game, one superstar aggressively guarded the rim, breaking the nose of another.
Imagine one of the greatest NBA players ever berating another all-time great at the final siren for missing the game-winning jumper.
Not very long ago, during the same All-Star Game, these events took place. With eight minutes remaining in the third quarter of the 2012 Orlando game, Dwyane Wade broke Kobe Bryant's nose trying to stop him from making a basket.
The night will always be remembered more for Bryant's yelling at LeBron James to "shoot the f---ing ball" after James passed the ball twice in the last ten seconds, trailing Bryant's West squad by two points. Before the last possession, during a timeout, Bryant had committed to covering James even though he wanted to stop him straight. Though James refused to engage him, Bryant closed the game with a scowl as the West won 152-149.
A few days later, Wade contacted to make sure there were no hard feelings before his Miami Heat team faced Bryant's Los Angeles Lakers. When Bryant informed him that he "loved" Wade playing so hard in the exhibition, he was pleasantly surprised.
When Bryant had a chance to win the game with one second remaining in overtime by making three free throws, Michael Jordan tried to get into his brain in a legendary 2003 All-Star moment. When Bryant missed, the game went into double overtime, with Jordan making a clutch jumper in Atlanta that nearly won it for the East.
Bryant was brought up to compete in these events in this manner because he had a strong passion for All-Star Games. Even now, twenty years later, it's difficult to determine which would be more unbelievable for an All-Star Game: genuine competition after the game or one of them playing double overtime.
Although All-Star Weekend had always leaned more towards style than substance, the Salt Lake City edition of the event last year was undoubtedly the lowest point.
Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone was blunt after the game, even though nobody recalls who won.
"It's an honour to be here, it's an honour to be part of a great weekend with great players," said Malone, who was the coach of the losing side Team LeBron (Team Giannis won). "But that is the worst basketball game ever played. ... I'm not going to lie."
In All-Star history, getting to this point has been a lengthy haul, replete with high points and plenty of apathy. The NBA is looking for a sea change. Malone expressed his dissatisfaction with the game reaching a low point in the most direct way possible, but he wasn't the only one. This led the league to decide to try to inject some enthusiasm into the midseason show.
Bryant's MVP award for the All-Star Game is named in his honour, demonstrating how much he valued the game. Throughout Bryant's career, there were accusations that the exhibition was getting worse, but he was one of the few who made an effort to hold it to a certain quality. The game seemed to lose direction as he slipped into retirement.
Think about the modifications made to each All-Star version in less than ten years:
• The idea of defence, which was already an All-Star rarity, was retired in 2016, Bryant's final season in the NBA. Defenders were seldom jumpers and seldom ran. Outrageously, the West team scored 196 points.
• In 2017, there was more standing around than anything else, and the two teams combined for a record 374 points. Almost all of the 83 dunks were made without opposition; Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 12 of them.
• A week before the game, team captains would select their players in a playground-style fashion. This was a new structure introduced by the NBA in 2018 to maybe incite excitement, possibly realising things were getting out of control. The game's most memorable aspect would not be the altered format, but rather the absurd quantity of 3-pointers that players were making. Although there were only 27 dunks, 123 3-pointers were attempted, which is a record for the All-Star game. The teams' 29% conversion rate wasn't very impressive. Players mostly lingered about and took turns watching one another lift them from deeper and deeper instead of the customary dunk frenzy.
A staggering 167 3-pointers were attempted in 2019 as the game grew even more repetitive.
The NBA used the Elam Ending in 2020 to reinvigorate player competition. This involved the fourth quarter being played without a clock and a predetermined target score. The target score was set at 24 in memory of Bryant, whose jersey number was lost tragically a month before the game.
Thus, the objective score was 24 points added to the winning team's score after three quarters. However, the teams also participated in individual quarterfinal matches where the prizes were charity.
Even though it was included at a few noteworthy moments, the COVID-19 pandemic-related delay of the 2021 edition and misunderstanding around the format prevented it from flourishing.
Any momentum was gone by the end of the previous season in a game where players took turns passing the ball over the backboard to one another and making half-court shots.
"That wasn't basketball. That was just highlights and layups and jump shots," Celtics' All-Star Jaylen Brown said after last year's game. "I don't know how much notoriety you'd want to get from this. It was just a glorified layup line."
The 2023 team selection process took place only before the game. One of the captains, James, was excused by the NBA from Saturday's events for personal reasons, so he didn't arrive in Utah until the day of the game.
The choices were random, maybe because of this. For example, reigning two-time MVP Nikola Jokic unintentionally selected himself for James' squad when he failed to realise local Utah Jazz teammate Lauri Markkanen hadn't been selected yet.
"I would not draft myself either," Jokic said. "I'm not meant for this game."
The players changed rooms for lockers. The pregame festivities and introductions then dragged on.
"Some people stayed in the same locker room [with players not on their team]," Damian Lillard said. "Everything just felt long. It was an hour between everything. It felt like the longest All-Star that I've been a part of."
Even by All-Star standards, the game was a clumsy display of effort and interest, continuing the chaos and lack of seriousness from before. There were 62 fouls called in 1993. There were seven in 2023.
It was only fitting that James, having promised Malone he would try to get one defensive stop, struck his finger on the hoop during a shot-blocking attempt and was out for the remainder of the game.
Sports Media Watch reports that viewership was 4.6 million, the lowest amount in almost 20 years.
"I was kind of in the middle of, 'Do I play hard or do I just be comfortable?' You don't want to be that [only] guy that's out there hustling and body checking, you do float that line," LA Clippers All-Star Paul George said after the game.
"At the end of the day, the fans want a more serious game. ... That's going to get the most oohs and ahhs, [more] than giving a guy a wide-open dunk. But that's how it's been played in our era. I'd love to see it go to a more competitive game."
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a guard with the Oklahoma City Thunder, proposed including money to entice a better product. Players said the $500,000 cash incentive for the victors boosted the competitive atmosphere of that event, which encouraged stronger performances in the NBA's inaugural in-season competition.
Rather, the league is attempting a new transformation. instead of a makeover. The East vs. West roster structure will return for Sunday's All-Star game. The NBA has pledged to curtail long pregame ceremonies, which players claimed made it difficult to warm up and get ready for the game. The Elam Ending has been dropped.
"No one was happy about the experience last year, no one at all," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said during a Nov. 8 interview on "The Old Man and the Three" Podcast after the changes were announced last fall. "It's not me necessarily saying we expect you to be playing like it's the Finals but we need a game."
This season, Silver has charted a course to "rebalance" the league in what he has repeatedly referred to as a "back to basketball" agenda. This includes bringing the All-Star Game back to its historical origins as well as instituting a player participation policy designed to discourage elite players from taking breaks during important national television games.
There was a noticeable rise in intensity in the first few regular season games, therefore the in-season tournament did, for the most part, have the expected effect. It remains to be seen if the players as a whole will heed the urge for a stronger performance in the All-Star Game. It most likely couldn't get worse.
"We need to make the message clear to players," Silver said after announcing the changes last fall, "[so] guys come out and say, 'It's a game. Let's go try to win it.'"